I spent all the money I had on the most lavish ceremony possible, invited kings of other Catholic realms, and gave big donation to the church to get Pope to travel from Rome to crown me. It only makes sense to legitimize rebirth of kingdom of Arles, previously ruled by Karlings and Welfs, but defunct since death of Rudolf III Welf in 1032.
This and my participation in the First Crusade solidified my friendship with Pope Victor III, who asked me to do something about duchy of Milan, which was currently held by a sinful kinslayer sodomite. Duke had strong armies and was married to daughter of grand mayor of Ancona.
Fortunately my prestige as a crowned king let me arrange marriages for my children and siblings into families of dukes of Bavaria, Tuscany, Saxony, and Lower Lorraine, and kingdoms of Lotharingia and Castille.
Still, between them they had enough troops to challenge the Kaiser - duke of Milan 5k, and grand mayor merced up to 8k, against my 10k total and another 10k of my allies. Fortunately they split their troops.
Emperorship kept switching with 3 different houses taking it after Salians, but Salian son of emperor Heinrich declared himself king of Franconia - 4th kingdom within the HRE after Bohemia, Lotharingia, and my Arles.
New Kaiser somehow decided to press my vassal's claim to county of Zagreb.
I became HRE's Steward. Kaiser wanted my support to pass some laws, and I agreed in exchange for a sizeable gift. While I was fighting minor war for Styria Kaiser called for enforced realm peace, but someone else called in their favor to cancel that idea.
I made my half-brother my spymaster, and he tried to murder me twice. In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised. I threw him into prison, but a few good times with his wife and I softened up and released him.
Shia caliph exiled to deep Abyssinia successfully defeated its king and forced the kingdom to be abolished, and then tried to reclaim Egypt in a jihad. It failed just as Sunni jihad before it. Christian Egypt might very well be the most powerful kingdom in the world right now. Unfortunately its king Errand the Sword of Jesus de Normandie took religion too seriously, is celibate, so his Crusader Bloodline might very well die with him.
I thought that would be the end of Egypt's troubles, but the Orthodox Roman Emperor, under pretence of some tiny Orthodox minority (literally 1 province with 1 holding) living in Egypt, declared Religious Liberation war on Egypt. I did not see that coming. It's apparently some rare event only CB, and you can use it even between religions that can't holy war each other.
I had to send help to Egypt, even if it was really minor. We crushed the Orthodox Emperor, and then king of Egypt continued the crusade by taking Jerusalem from the Shia Caliph. This wasn't any epic fight, just a minor border skirmish, and Jerusalem was free form infidel oppression.
I had one more Christian duty - king of Castille, father of my sister's husband, was fighting infidels for Toledo. What's that even, uncle-in-law?
There's a lot of fighting between Catholics and infidels in Iberia and minor islands, but it wouldn't surprise me if second crusade irrevocably broke Muslim power.
Crusades have been unusually successful and we're only just beginning
Kingdom of Arles is growing slightly bigger every time.
Electors was to make my vassal duke of Styria next Kaiser, so I'd lose that, but it's really no big deal.
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